Stonehenge and the recumbents [it's all about the recumbent at them- i've been to enough] are not true stone circles and the recumbents do seem to have had a fire at the start [probably to clear the ground]. It really does seem to be different where you are in the country which suggests different things were going on all over, therefore it was probably very regional as to what went on , i can almost hear the dancing feet down here in cornwall.

I think the name recumbent stone circles tells us what type of monument it is . Recumbents also have burials associated with them , as well as ring cairns . Stone circles in the south west had charcoal deposits e.g. at Ferworthy the entire inner space was covered in charcoal, Brisworthy and the Grey Wethers also had charcoal deposits , Boskednan had a cist .Hurlers northern circle was paved with granite ,Duloe had an urn with a cremation . "Swept clean " and don't like excavating them "quotes ?

Fires before the circle was put up [probably just to clear the ground ready for the build] boskednan's cist/cairn would probably have been put there a 1000 years after the circle stones [ we'll have to wait for it to be dated to prove one of us right] the people who built the cairn may have had no idea what the circle was for by that point, just that it was built by the ancestors, and the paving i'm sure was only added when the last circle was put up [so a long time after there was a stone circle there, there may also be evidence of the stone's been worked which would also be late in the scheme of things, and duloe's a funny old circle so i'll have a guess and say the urn is contemporary with the circle- as it could be the most flashy burial in the country, it's a very unusual place and unlike anything else around here.

We have to rely on excavation and RC dating to find the actual sequence , guesswork and estimations even from the experienced expert can be shown to be wrong .
Getting a date for the Boskednan cist does not date the circle .
Stone circles have been erected at sites that had seen earlier activity that the builders would have been aware of , and that activity may well have been the reason for choosing to build the monument at the site in the first place . Stone circles built within clearly visible earlier monuments are obvious examples e.g. Arbor Low , Stonehenge , Broomend of Crichie (where burials were also found in the stone sockets ) , Newgrange , Moncrieffe ,Clava (where the sequence shows that the stone circles were erected soon after the ring cairns were built ) .
Neolithic pottery was found in a shallow scoop underneath the recumbent and in the socket of a fallen orthostats as well as other contexts at Daviot . Excavations from the 1990's showed that at Tomnaverie the old land surface was covered with burnt soil , comminuted charcoal and fragments of human bone , this was covered by a cairn and platform in which monoliths were stood , under the recumbent charcoal produced a date of 2498-2432 BC. Although there were further use of the site in the Late Bronze Age and 16&17th C ad the last structure was the RSC with the recumbent being last of that . The sequence and date was not what was generally expected and the findings were repeated at Cothiemur Wood where the the ring cairn was seen as the first structure followed by the stone circle similar results were discovered at Aikey Brae . It would only take one example to refute “Stone circles have nothing left in them “ . And clearly the effort put in and interest shown by the archaeologists who chose to excavate these places including the findings of earlier and contemporaneous material refutes “thats why archeologists don't like them]
and when they do find stuff it's from a different age [romans liked leaving coins] to when the circle was built, “

No silly you would have to date the circle as well [boskednan] - the recumbents are a class of their own as i think the stone circle is always secondry to the recumbent itself, like the stone circles are secondry to the clava cairns [sometimes they don't even have the circle do they?]. In other places the stone circle [the "true" ones] was all important. Of couse archeologists interested in prehistory would like them [as we would- it's the same], the average archeologist less so - as there's not going to be much there [oh no i said it].

Your'e the one who said "boskednan's cist/cairn would probably have been put there a 1000 years after the circle stones [ we'll have to wait for it to be dated to prove one of us right] " i.e. prejudging the date of the circle from the date of cist . Hence "Getting a date for the Boskednan cist does not date the circle . "
You might think /believe /imagine the stone circle to be secondary to the recumbent or the stone circle to be secondary to the ring cairns at Clava ( all the ring cairns at Clava have stone circles around them , some Clava cairns i.e. those named after the Clava site don't necessarily ) but that does nothing to change what we know from excavation which among many other suggestions refutes your “Stone circles have nothing left in them “ . I see that
"Stone circles have nothing left in them thats why archeologists don't like them] “ has been moderated to “ Of couse archeologists interested in prehistory would like them “ where the “them “ are stone circles .

They may be the first stone circles also, but if they are they took on a life of there own around the rest of the country.

What may be the first stone circles ?

Some of The recumbent stone circles of beautitful [in parts] aberdeenshire [shires a very anglo- saxon word isn't it- there's loads of my surname" blades" in lanarkshire, and ayrshire- bloody hell scotlands nearly got as many shires as england, there must be more englishmen in scotland than scotsmen].

Once again it's exacvation that will tell us and that has shown that they are younger than was previously believed ,as seems to be the case with quite a lot of stone circles when they actaully get dug and dated . .As mentioned previously the earlier platform and cairn at Tomnaverie has been dated to circa 2400 BC , Cothiemuir didn't provide much evidence for a build date but it seen as being reasonably close chronologically . So Early Bronze Age .
There seems to have been a move of Blades into Lanarkshire (from Lincolnshire ?) after 1881 prior to that it was only found in small numbers in Ayshire .